Since I last posted I have been on the move, busily attending to mostly business matters in Perth Western Australia. When I return to Montevideo next week I will upload some pictures, including a new ‘folly’ / bizarre piece of architecture I saw in one place – some pics and comments regarding a couple of textile exhibitions visited while in Perth, and several other things.

Every now and then when I am travelling I am struck by the detatched nature of being somewhere in transit and not actually connected to any thing or anyone around you just for that time. It can be some overheard snippet of conversation (eg over the back fence one night in Perth, our neighbours’ young we haveing a party – barbie going, drinks flowing freely and music actually not very noisy and rather to my liking, so no complaints – just listening was fascinating: “… she is really hot, you know?…. he had hickies all up one side of his neck …. seriously, I haven’t had sex for three months … what are you two doing over there, not kissing are you? … and so on and so on. Even these young things were also talking property and money – the whole of Perth is yabbering about these things on daily basis as they weather the effects of the giant resources boom in Western Australia right now. My, how those kids have grown up over the last few years since we spent any time in our house in Perth, but mature? ….
It can also be triggered by seeing something that seems out of place and that may be so or not. I’m sure these were out of place – the pair of nice navy women’s shoes in a clear plastic bag lying where they dropped, in the middle of a crosswalk between the Brisbane Airport and the station for the Airtrain. As I paused and briefly considered picking them up and handing them in as lost propertly, I realised that even as I did so someone might be frantically back-tracking to try to find them and walk right past me: and then there was the question as to which side should I hand them in seeing as how they were about half way between rail and runway so to speak. All that seemed to indicate to me to leave them right where they were. And I found that decision to be right for me just then, but oddly unsettling as being not at all characteristic of how I would have dealt with the discovery in some other place/time. Just one of the unexpected snippets that can happen while ‘in transit’

From a new friend in Costa Rica, Silvia Piza-Tandlich, a fellow SDA member, came this wonderful group of sheets of her hand made paper that I just have to share with you. She uses pieces of it in her embroidery (visit http://www.galeriaoctagono.com/ which is a communal site, but some of her work is there)The piece in the rear has particularly luscious long thick fibres that end beautifully at the edge in the URcorner.

I feel they could be incorporated into something, with sheer perhaps? and will post pics if/when I do that. like all precious materials there is a hesitancy to cut into them but make a muck of it – which translates to ‘think twice, cut once’ an adaptation of the old carpenter’s adage. Very inspiring.

I learned a lot from the previous new work I posted, including that it is best to do the burning for what I have in mind when the sheer is actually attached to the underlying layers.

Also I learned that despite all care, occasionally a bit of burnt nylon is spotted onto the underlying fabric, but these lettle dots can be flicked off with the point of a needle once they harden.

In this small section of a current work I just had to do a few quilting lines and some of poking about with the wood burning tool and get a pic up, partly for my own record but also partly to try out a new camera I obtained by cashing a large number of customer reward points at our local supermarket – better even than duty free wouldn’t you say? With several more megapixels than my previous one, and more bells and whistles, I think we’re going to get along just fine; one thing I like is a feature that compensates for a shaking hand – I don’t think this is aimed just at seniors – I think it is a great feature most of us could do with from time to time especially if taking a snap from a moving vehicle, stuff like that. My camera needs are not very sophisticated, I just need to be able to take people pics, occasional touristy ‘been there’ pics, pics of textures anywhere that grab my attention, and pics of interesting textiles incuding close-ups of fine detail. I do have major pieces photographed professionally, rather than cart lighting and other props around in my peripatetic life, however.

This new work brings together several things I want to tackle – like unbound or very non-traditional edges , as I feel that in a way my love of a finely bound or faced edge has in fact been limiting what I am prepared to consider inside the shape,there is no point behaving freely inside a tight, neat box. Perhaps that is a principle I could examine further out in practical parts of Life, like wearing purple etc 🙂 but I digress.

I had been fiddling around with making holes in sheers, feeling I wanted to work more with them – the ephemeral quality having great potential for expressing thoughts on decay, just as punched leather does. In combination I think they are very interesting.

I have called the work this detail comes from “Strata” .
I am happy to announce this quilt has been selected to appear in the first SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) Oceania Quilt Textiles exhibition to be held in Brisbane in October, and will appear in other Australian exhibitions scheduled into next year. I will put up a full view of this quilt once it has been seen in public.

It’s not the first time I have called a work ‘Strata’ but the other was a project article piece in a magazine a few years back so I don’t think it counts, really. (QNM, Nov, 2004) Interestingly in a current magazine “Quilting Arts” there is a roughly similar article by an author who has used several ‘Strata’ quilts from her series of them, to illustrate the article. Wavy lines do suggest rock strata to many people I guess.

This detail shows free machine quilting with metallc thread the same colour as the metallic gold leather applied in a design over this hand dyed fabric of Janet Jo Smith’s – I don’t dye myself – just buy it, mostly hers and Dijanne Cevaal’s.

Which brings me to several other quilting matters: A couple of weeks ago up in Longmont Colorado, I taught a workshop on “Quilting With an Attitude” to a very receptive and hard working bunch of quilters, arranged by The Front Range Contemporary Quilters of CO. They were a joy to teach, and a very stimulating group.

And also while I was up there I met with Jan and Steve Rondeau of Quilted Expressions, Johnstown CO, http://www.quiltedexpressions.net/ who are going to take care of DD and SIL’s kingsize bedquilt, plus a couple more large ones I have been sitting on a while – one I fell out of love with immediately I tea died it and a few of the patches grabbed up much more colour than the other 95% !!! But now, since it has served it’s two year cupboard sentence, I find I love it and feel sure the longarm pattern and thread chosen will enhance this unique quilt. The third one WAS going to be the back for the young newlyweds’ quilt, but for various good reasons isn’t going to be after all, and it’s coming into our home instead as a quilt in its own right. It’s interesting that after all these years of making quilts of various sizes including bedquilts for other people, we will soon have two of mine living here as bed coverings. Of course, there is still the hexagon quilt to finish off……as I will, one day…. no rush, since deciding the quilting pattern for that one will take some time, anyway ….